Another week in the books, and it’s been one that’s raced by for me. Alas, we’ve not had Mafia: The Old Country through the doors for a review, but I’ve been able to sink a little time into Battlefield 6’s public beta now, made a little start on our review of the “brinepunk” roguelite Abyssus with Miguel, and repeatedly thrust my arms along a desk for something else.
Aran popped in to tell us that he’s been playing SkyCards and Wild Hearts. “SkyCards is a very addictive mix of card collecting and Top Trumps, but it is based on FlightTracker24 data so you catch planes in your area as they fly past. You can also travel to other airports, but to do that you have to unlock the airports, and the only way to do that is to catch a plane going there.”
This sounds… expensive.
Ade’s spent this week playing DOOM: The Dark Ages and has been absolutely loving it, while Jim has been playing Far Cry 5, having waited for a console performance upgrade before making a start on it – “Ubisoft has a done a great job patching past-gen titles to give them a higher frame rate on PS5”. He’s enjoying its characters, setting and open world, with the only negative being that the combat hasn’t been all that dynamic, he feels.
In stark contrast to one another, Nic has been ill, and that is all, while Steve has been holidaying in North Wales. He took his Retroid Pocket 3+ with him and played a bit of Breath of Fire II on the journey. Aside from that, he’s been working his way through Wuchang, which he’s enjoying despite hitting a brick wall of a boss, and has finished the main campaign of Space Marine 2 with his online buddies, “which was a fun time but it did seem to take control away at the end for cutscenes rather than combat which was a bit disappointing.”
Gamoc has been playing Peglin for review, and blended that with a mix of Death Stranding, a bit of Animal Crossing, which he’s already growing tired of, Burnout Paradise, Saints Row 3, and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden.
Dom has been playing Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar for our upcoming review, and turned in a report on Tanuki Pon’s Summer.
And we’ll finish things out with an essay from Tuffcub, who’s been playing Mindseye! Is it as bad as all that?
“It’s really clear that this was meant to be a GTA style game, there’s a lot of set-up for the vibrant city, and there’s a lot of driving to locations, the maps are big. However, somewhere down the line, time and budget meant it got cut down to a series of linear missions and all the features you would expect don’t exist. For example, you can murder the staff at your new job by running them over and nothing happens, No police, no retribution, not even a smacked wrist. Guns just vanish when you pick them up for ammo, and while it looks nice, examine closer and you can spot the cut corners, in one mission the same stick could be found on the ground about every ten paces.”
“Almost two months after launch, and it’s still got acres of screen tearing, and when a new scene loads the whole screen flashes like a disco as objects load in. The plot doesn’t make any sense either, whacked-out ex-marine gets the top security job at the world’s biggest tech firm just because his mate asked? What? And then there’s the office of this revered figure that the new boss has deliberately kept undisturbed for years.. and yet anybody’s security card will open it and you can have a look around and mess with stuff. What? I can see the game they wanted to make. Sadly, they didn’t get remotely close to achieving it.”
Now then, what have you played?
Andrewww
I continued to play Jedi: Survivor this week, as it’s about to leave Plus, and a quick look at it got me hooked. It’s a good mixture of fighting, exploration and environmental riddles, reminds me of some of the better (older) Tomb Raider games, just with a Star Wars story. It’s a shame these games keep leaving Plus.